Fried beef and tomatoes

Pork is definitely the most popular meat in China, but we have about four million Muslims plus about twice that number of other smaller ethnic groups who eat beef and mutton to the exclusion of pork.

As a child, I was told not to eat beef for humanitarian reasons: for centuries oxen and water buffalo were traditionally the symbol of cultivation and it would be too crude to eat the flesh of the animal which helped to feed us. My grandfather, who was a classical scholar of his time, always refused on principle to touch a beef dish. Once I watched him enjoying one at a banquet, but he insisted afterwards that he didn’t know what he was eating at the time. My nanny, who was an excellent cook herself, maintained that she could tell the difference between beef and any other meat from a mile off, and consequently she had a strong dislike of cooking beef in her kitchen, let alone eating it.

Years later, I discovered that beef was fairly widely eaten by the Cantonese and Sichuanese, though they tend to treat it as rather inferior to pork and chicken – which is not hard tounderstand since by the time the poor beast had done a long life’s work, its meat would be too tough and tasteless, and great efforts would be required to render it palatable. This is why most Chinese recipes for beef call for the use of bicarbonate of soda in the marinade to tenderize the meat. This is quite unnecessary in the West, as the quality of the beef is much superior, and the meat is usually well hung which is never the case in China.

Again this is a very simple dish to make. If you have done all the preparation beforehand, then the actual cooking time should be no more than 3 minutes at the very most.

3/4 lb (340 g) frying beef
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp dry sherry
1 tsp cornflour
3/4 lb (340 g) tomatoes
1-2 Spring onions
1-2 thin slices fresh ginger root
4 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper

Method

Trim all the excess fat off the meat with a sharp knife, then cut it into as thin slices as possible across the grain. Mix it with sugar, soy sauce, sherry and cornflour and leave it to marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Cut the tomatoes into ¼ in(6 mm) thick slices – do not peel off the skin, which has all the goodness init. Cut the spring onions and ginger root into small pieces. Then all is ready for the final operation.

Heat a wok or frying pan over a high heat until very hot, add the oil, wait for it to smoke then add the beef and stir vigorously to prevent it from sticking to the pan and to make sure the pieces are not stuck together. As soon as the colour of the meat changes from dark to pale – this will take only about 30 seconds if you keep the heat high – quickly scoop it out with a perforated spoon. There should still be enough oil left in the pan (if not, add a little more) to fry the tomatoes with spring onions and ginger root; stir for a few seconds before adding the partly cooked beef to the pan. Cook together for about 20-30 seconds, stirring constantly. Now add salt and pepper, stir a few times more, and it is ready.

Serve it while it is sizzling hot. The beef should taste so tender that it melts in the mouth, and the tomato, if you have managed to get some half-ripe hard ones, should be crisp and crunchy.

© Deh-Ta Hsiung and reproduced with his kind permission.